Any ideas? I’ve googled it, but the method that some folk seemed to prefer (creating an autorun.inf that runs a batch file with diskpart) doesn’t seem to work.

is there not a way of referencing it by the volume name (like you would on mac/linux)?

EDIT: yes http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9065280/reference-a-volume-drive-by-label

The reason for this is that I have a Photoshop Elements catalogue on the external drive. It stores the paths to the images using full pathnames (annoyingly) so the drive letter is important.

I wonder if I could map a drive to the volume label though..? Hmm..

EDIT it seems I can map a folder on the normal HD to point to the volume whenever it’s inserted. This could work – I would only transfer the photoshop catalogue between computers with PS installed, ie my work and home machines, so I could set up the folder on each machine once only. That could work.

Dont you just right click on the device in Windows Explorer & go “Assign Drive Letter” or something like that ?
My HTC always comes up as “F”, my Blackberry always comes up as “G”, regardless of what order I plug them in. I’m sure thats what I did…

Yes but it doesn’t preserve that setting.

Had to do this myself recently and did it like this(in windows 7).
From start, right click computer and select ‘manage’
In the computer management window select ‘storage/disk management’
In the lower window scroll to the usb drive and right click.
Select ‘change drive letter and path/change.
Assign new letter and save.

Yes but it doesn’t preserve that setting.

Hackishly, you could use SUBST.

Set your library to point to Z:\pathname, then when you plug in the key and it mounts as eg F:, type subst z: f:\ in the Run box.

The method I described works for me but only on the machine you use to assign the letter. I am a serial backerupper and have various usb’s and external hard drives and it was getting messy and difficult to manage.

isnt one way of doing it through disk mgmnt console
insert Usb stick and then assign drive letter

another way i think is diskpart list disk etc when making disk bootable it will assign the volume a drive letter

i use x instead of picking c or d though

Yes I tried using the console – it forgets the letter I assign to it every time.

i use x instead of picking c or d though

Which is why it gets preserved between sessions.

Habit I got into years ago was calling them W and X. No problems with preservation. All my batch backup scripts work fine every time.
(from Windows NT to Vista anyway).